Perspective

I have never met anyone who won every battle they fought or who got through every altercation unscathed. As mere mortals, we experience plenty of successes and failures. We regularly witness or experience both personal and business tragedies but in most cases we manage to persevere. The question is – how will we carry the scars of battle?

The key, in my opinion, is how we choose to view and tell our story. When a tragedy happens, do we take it as confirmation of our own failings, or do we look for lessons that we can learn from the episode? It’s never easy and I don’t want to trivialize the emotion of the moment or the …

One of my friends has terminal cancer.  No further chemo is possible, and his oncologist has referred him to a pain management specialist.  I feel helpless that, medically, there is very little that can be done.  He is such a brave, kind, and wonderful person; he does not deserve this.

In my hours of pondering my friend and his situation, what finally came into my mind was “BRAT”.  For those of you who, like me, have a fussy stomach, you might know that “BRAT” is medical shorthand for a diet of bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast.  This is generally recommended for …

No, I am not talking about betting the horses, although the results of this kind of playing favorites can result in some pretty serious losses.  What I am referring to is the tendency of parents to favor one of their children over another.  In my experience, when this topic comes up, virtually all parents will stoutly maintain that they treat all of their children the same.  However, from conversations that I have had with family and …

Kathi and I have two daughters.  Like all parents we are very proud of them.  Kaitlin graduated from Lewis & Clark College last year and Kristen is a senior at UCLA.  At last year’s graduation, I had the opportunity to sit down with them and talk about life after college.  I thought it would be important for them to know what they faced, why, and what the future would hold for them.  Many graduates are having a hard time finding jobs in their fields.  You probably know some of them.  Not a surprise given the slowness of the recovery from …

While we’re certain you don’t want an  accountant who improvises with your numbers, we are positive our team gained a new perspective on communication from the Improvisation exercise we tried at our firm retreat on Monday. 

The theme of our retreat was communication and the exercise came from The Improv Handbook  by Tom Salinsky and Deborah Frances-White.The idea was to  put one of the core concepts of Improvisation (the idea of “yes, and…”)  to the test using three different simulated conversations. We matched everyone in the room with a teammate and instructed each pair to plan an imaginary trip, event, or …

I was rafting down a river in the Canadian Rockies when I first heard that my granddaughter, Mikyla, had a brain tumor.  It was like getting struck by lightning, how a vibrant energetic seven year old could get struck down with such a serious disease.  I stumbled home as quickly as I could to see a semi-conscious post-operative Mikyla surrounded by balloons, stuffed animals and many relatives.  (Her Dad comes from a big family.)  She had just endured a 15-hour surgery to remove the tumor and had five or six supplemental brain surgeries in the following week.

It has now been …

Wow, what a climb!  Do you ever feel like there are just too many steps before you? On my recent business trip to the East coast I spent a day in Lynchburg, VA to visit family.  While out and about as a tourist I came across these 132 steps.  They serve as a memorial for local veterans dating back to WWI.  As I ascended the  steps and read each of the memorials I began to reflect on all of those who have given up so much, often their …

Language is a powerful tool. When people speak a common language they feel part of a shared experience.  Think about the way you order a soft drink. In the South it’s called a “Coke”, in New England you hear “Pop” or “Soda” . Out here, folks  just go for a “non fat espresso latte ” instead.  But when someone steps up to the counter to place an order you can generally tell where they are from. By having knowledge of the vernacular, you are united with others who use the same language. When you don’t have the right words, you feel …

One my favorite things to do after tax season each year is to select tomato varieties for the coming gardening season. 

Around seven years ago, before I expanded my lawn into what had been my vegetable garden area in the interest of making my house more “marketable”, I had the …

I was lucky enough to meet John Wooden twice in person.  When I was 21, I went to work for an LA sporting goods store at the corner of Westwood and LaConte, near the main entrance of UCLA.  The owner of the store was a 1940’s UCLA football star, Milt Smith.  The store had a Hermes  engraving machine and we engraved some of the trophies for UCLA.  Being the young guy I was, guess who did the engraving? Needless to say, it was a somewhat tedious task.

One time Milt had me engrave John Wooden’s  Pyramid of Success.  That was the first time …